Sainsburys plots aggressive games expansion

Sainsbury's has targeted a major expansion in video game floor space as it looks to grow its entertainment offering, the supermarket chain has told MCV.

Both Asda and Tesco have been quick to tout their recent success in video game sales, and Sainsbury's is keen to catch up by improving its in-store displays and merchandise range.

We are performing ahead of the market in terms of growth,” said Sainsbury's DVD and games buyer Gurdeep Hunjan. And we have invested heavily in giving the game category more floor space and new equipment over the last two years, and we are benefiting from a major upturn in sales.”

We have a good foundation in place and some aggressive plans to expand in-store space. However a key point when planning our ranges is to keep them simple. Our focus will be on execution, store display, merchandising and strong compliance levels.

We see games as a huge opportunity for Sainsbury's going forward.”Sainsbury's appears confident in the industry's growth over the coming few years, and has targeted casual gaming as its key focus when looking at new ranges and in-store displays.

There is clearly a huge opportunity in the family gaming sector, which we will be looking to capitalise on as some of the more traditional gaming sectors,” added Hunjan. In addition, we are reviewing the current ranges with our detailed Nectar data and ranging to fit the Sainsbury's customer.

We clearly see it as a very exciting time in the video game industry with an ever-expanding market. With the new world that Nintendo has driven with its DS and Wii, and the potential of Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360, there is clearly a strong future ahead.

Most interesting for us is the new ‘untraditional' sector that has been driven by products such as Wii Fit, as well as the evolving family gaming market, which all points to a healthy future for Sainsbury's and the industry.”